Boston Public Schools (BPS) has a bureaucracy problem. The Bruce C. Bolling Municipal building—home to BPS’s central office—houses 587 staff. That makes one central administrator for every 78 students in the district—a greater central administrator-to-student ratio than nearly all districts of a comparable size nationwide.
The central office has been a bureaucratic balloon at the heart of a district in turmoil. Between the 2013–14 and 2023–24 school years, BPS enrollment declined by 8,558 students—a decrease of more than 15 percent. In that same 10-year span, 130 additional employees joined the ranks of the central office. In the face of falling enrollment, the district has shuttered several schools and is now facing the financial pressure to make further closures. Yet the central office has not been tailored to reflect the dwindling size of the district it is meant to serve.
The sheer size of the central office raises questions that BPS families and taxpaying Bostonians deserve answers to—namely, what do all these people do? Unfortunately, only the district itself can answer that, but mum’s the word. BPS did not respond to requests for comment.
Will Austin, former CEO of the non-profit Boston Schools Fund, describes how the behavior of education bureaucracies, if unchecked, can eventually calcify. “These organizations like any bureaucracy over time develop these different stacks of policies and procedures that at some point were based on a law or regulation or a good faith idea but then just become the way they do things.” The result is that districts become driven by compliance rather than outcomes. As Austin explains, “In a compliance mindset, the best thing you can do is have more inputs—let’s hire more people, let’s spend more money—without really a clear eye about what you’re actually trying to achieve or the outcomes you wish to see.”
Jamie Gass, Director of Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform, sees a direct connection between the oversized central office and struggling school performance. “It has interfered with holding schools accountable and interfered with the school-based autonomies that we observe generally drive a lot of big improvements,” he says. Indeed, the central office has simultaneously encumbered schools with bureaucratic red tape and failed to effectively support the schools most in need of assistance. While not alone in its administrative top-heaviness, the bureaucratic bloat in Boston is emblematic of a district that has lost its focus on students. As Gass puts it, “The hiring and administrative habits of particularly large urban school districts have become an employment mechanism for the adults.”
For years there have been serious concerns about accountability, efficiency, and transparency at BPS. The central office was front and center in a damning review of the district released by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in March 2020. The report highlighted a lack of trust and confidence in the central office from school leaders. The problem was particularly acute for the lowest performing schools in the district, with school leaders struggling to access necessary support and resources from the central office.
DESE released a follow-up review in May 2022. Despite some progress, including improved instructional materials, significant challenges persisted at BPS. The district remained marred by “entrenched dysfunction” at the central office, with frequent leadership turnover and disorganization leaving schools without reliable support. The report also noted the inaccuracy of data being collected by the district for key metrics such as enrollment and graduation rates.
Education commissioner Jeff Riley did not mince his words when presenting these findings to the state board of education. “There are just a myriad of problems here, many of them emanating from a bloated central office that is often incapable of the most basic functions,” he said. “The result is that students, especially our most vulnerable students, are being denied the quality education that they deserve.”
